The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
course of another minute Tobias had his end of it secure.
"Now," he said, "can you climb up by it, do you think? Don't hurry about
it. Remember, there is no alarm, and for all we know we have hours to
ourselves yet."
"Yes, yes--oh, yes--thank God!" he heard her say.
Tobias was not where he could, by any exertion of strength, render her
now the least assistance, and he watched the tightening of the frail
support by which she was gradually climbing to the top of the wall with
the most intense and painful interest that can be imagined.
"I come--I come," she said, "I am saved."
"Come slowly--for God's sake, do not hurry."
"No, no."
At this moment Tobias heard the frail rope giving way; there was a
tearing sound--it broke, and she fell. Lights, too, at that unlucky
moment, flashed from the house, and it was now evident an alarm had been
given. What could he do? if two could not be saved he might himself be
saved. He turned, and flung his feet over the wall; he hung by his hands
as low as he could, and then he dropped the remainder of the distance.
He was hurt, but in a moment he sprang to his feet, for he felt that
safety could only lie in instant and rapid flight. The terror of pursuit
was so strong upon him that he forgot his bruises.
* * * * *
"Thank Heaven," exclaimed Tobias, "I am at last free from that horrible
place. Oh, if I can but reach London now, I shall be safe; and as for
Sweeney Todd, let him beware, for a day of retribution for him cannot be
far off."
So saying, Tobias turned his steps towards the city, and at a hard trot,
soon left Peckham Rye far behind him as he pursued his route.
CHAPTER XXX.
MRS. LOVETT'S COOK MAKES A DESPERATE ATTEMPT.
There are folks who can and who will bow like reeds to the decrees of
evil fortune, and with a patient, ass-like placidity, go on bearing the
ruffles of a thankless world without complaining, but Mrs. Lovett's new
cook was not one of those. The more destiny seemed to say to him--"Be
quiet!" the more he writhed, and wriggled, and fumed, and could not be
quiet. The more fate whispered in his ears--"You can do nothing," the
more intent he was upon doing something, let it be what it might. And he
had a little something, in the shape of a respite too, now, for had he
not baked a batch of pies, and sent them up to the devouring fangs of
the lawyers' clerks in all their gelatinous, beauty and gushing
sweetness, to be devoured. To be sure he had, and therefore having, for
a space, obeyed the behests of his task-mistress, he could sit with his
head resting upon his hands and think. Thought! What a luxury! Where is
the Indian satrap--where the arch Inquisitor--where the grasping,
dishonest, scheming employer who can stop a man from thinking?--and as
Shakspeare, says of sleep,
"From that sleep, what dreams may come?"
so might he have said of thought,
From that thought what acts may come?
Now we are afraid that, in the first place, the cook, in spite of
himself, uttered some expression concerning Mrs. Lovett of neither an
evangelical or a polite character, and with these we need not trouble
the reader. They acted as a sort of safety-valve to his feelings, and
after consigning that fascinating female to a certain warm place, where
we may fancy everybody's pie might be cooked on the very shortest
notice, he got a little more calm.
"What shall I do?--what shall I do?"
Such was the rather vague question he asked of himself. Alas! how often
are those four simple words linked together, finding but a vain echo in
the over-charged heart. What shall I do? Ay, what!--small power had he
to do anything, except the quietest thing of all--that one thing which
Heaven in its mercy has left for every wretch to do if it so pleases
him--to die! But, somehow or another, a man upon the up-hill side of
life is apt to think he may do something rather than that, and our cook,
although he was about as desperate a cook as the world ever saw, did not
like yet to say die. Now, in that curious combination of passions,
impulses, and prejudices in the mind of this man it would be a hard case
if some scheme of action did not present itself, even in circumstances
of the greatest possible seeming depression, and so, after a time, the
cook did think of something to do.
"Many of these pies," he said to himself, "are not eaten in the shop,
_ergo_ they are eaten out of the shop, and possibly at the respective
houses of the purchasers--what more feasible mode of disclosing my
position, and 'the secrets of my prison-house,' can there be than the
enclosing a note in one of Mrs. Lovett's pies?"
After reviewing all the _pros_ and _cons_ of this scheme, there only
appeared a few little difficulties in the way, but, although they were
rather serious, they were not insurmountable. In the first place, it was
possible enough that the unfortunate pie in which the note might be
enclosed might be eaten in the shop, in which event the note might go
down the throat of some hungry lawyer's clerk, and it might be handed to
Mrs. Lovett, with a "God bless me, ma'am, what's this in the pie?" and
then Mrs. Lovett might, by a not very remote possibility, say to
herself--"This cook is a scheming, long-headed sort of a cook, and
notwithstanding he does his duty by the pies, he shall be sent upon an
errand to another and a better world," and in that case the delectable
scheme of the note could only end in the total destruction of the
unfortunate who conceived it. Objection the second was, that, although
nothing is so easy as to say--"Oh, write a note all about it," nothing
is so difficult as to write a note about anything without paper, ink,
and a pen. The cook rubbed his forehead, and cried--
"D----n it!"
This seemed to have the desired effect, for he at once recollected that
he was supplied with a thin piece of paper for the purpose of laying
over the pies if the oven should by chance be over heated, and so
subject them to an over-browning process.
"Surely," he thought, "I shall be able to make a substitute for a pen,
and as for ink, a little coal and water, or--ah, I have it, black from
my lights, of course. Ha--ha! How difficulties vanish when a man has
thoroughly made up his mind to overcome them. Ha--ha! I write a note--I
post it in a pie--some lawyer sends his clerk for a pie, and he gets
_that_ pie. He opens it and sees the note--he reads it--he flies to a
police-office, and gets a private interview with a magistrate--a couple
of Bow-street runners walk down to Bell Yard, and seize Mrs. Lovett--I
hear a row in the shop, and cry--'Here I am--I am here--make haste--here
I am--here I am!' Ha--ha--ha--ha--ha--ha!"
"Are you mad?"
The cook started to his feet--
"Who spoke--who spoke?"
"I," said Mrs. Lovett, looking through the ingenious little wicket at
the top of the door. "What do you mean by that laughing? If you have
gone mad, as one cook once did, death will be a relief to you. Only
convince me of that fact, and in two hours you sleep the long sleep."
"I beg your pardon, ma'am, I am not at all mad."
"Then why did you laugh in such a way that it reached even my ears
above?"
"Why, ma'am, are you not a widow?"
"Well?"
"Well then, you could not have possibly looked at me as you ought to
have done, or you would have seen that I am anything but a bad looking
fellow, and as I am decidedly single, what do you say to taking me for
better or for worse? The pie business is a thriving one, and, of course,
if I had an interest in it, I should say nothing of affairs down below
here."
"Fool!"
"Thank you, madam, for the compliment, but I assure you, the idea of
such an arrangement made me laugh, and at all events, provided I do my
duty, you don't mind my laughing a little at it?"
Mrs. Lovett disdained any further conversation with the cook, and closed
the little wicket. When she was gone he took himself seriously to task
for being so foolish as to utter his thoughts aloud, but yet he did not
think he had gone so far as to speak loud enough about the plan of
putting the letter in a pie for her to hear that.
"Oh, no--no, I am safe enough. It was the laughing that made her come. I
am safe as yet!"
Having satisfied himself fully upon this point, he at once set to work
to manufacture his note. The paper, as he had said, was ready at hand.
To be sure, it was of a thin and flimsy texture, and decidedly brown,
but a man in his situation could be hardly supposed to stand upon
punctilios. After some trouble he succeeded in making an apology for a
pen by the aid of a piece of stick, and he manufactured some very
tolerable ink, at least, as good as the soot and water commonly sold in
London for the best "japan," and then he set about writing his note. As
we have an opportunity of looking over his shoulder, we give the note
verbatim.
"SIR--(OR MADAM)--I am a prisoner beneath the shop of Mrs. Lovett, the
pie female, in Bell Yard. I am threatened with death if I attempt to
escape from my now enforced employment. Moreover, I am convinced that
there is some dreadful secret connected with the pies, which I can
hardly trust my imagination to dwell upon, much less here set it down.
Pray instantly, upon receipt of this, go to the nearest police-office
and procure me immediate aid, or I shall soon be numbered with the dead.
In the sacred names of justice and humanity, I charge you to do this."
The cook did not, for fear of accidents, put his name to this epistle.
It was sufficient, he thought, that he designated his condition, and
pointed out where he was. This note he folded into a close flat shape,
and pressed it with his hands, so that it would take up a very small
portion of room in a pie, and yet, from its size and nature, if the pie
fell into the hands of some gourmand who commenced eating it violently,
he could not fail to feel that there was a something in his mouth more
indigestible than the delicate mutton or veal and the flaky crust of
which Mrs. Lovett's delicacies were composed. Having proceeded thus far,
he concluded that the only real risk he ran was, that the pie might be
eaten in the shop, and the enclosure, without examination, handed over
to Mrs. Lovett merely as a piece of paper which had insinuated itself
where it had no right to be. But as no design whatever can be carried
out without some risk or another, he was not disposed to give up his,
because some contingency of that character was attached to it. The
prospect of deliverance from the horrible condition to which he was
reduced, now spread over his mind a pleasing calm, and he set about the
manufacture of a batch of pies, so as to have it ready for the oven when
the bell should ring.--Into one of them he carefully introduced his
note. Oh, what an eye he kept upon that individual pie. How often he
carefully lifted the upper crust, to have a peep at the little missive
which was about to go upon an errand of life or death.--How he tried to
picture to his mind's eye the sort of person into whose hands it might
fall, and then how he thought he would listen for any sounds during the
next few hours, which should be indicative of the arrest of Mrs. Lovett,
and the presence of the police in the place. He thought, then, that if
his laugh had been sufficiently loud when merely uttered to himself, to
reach the ears of Mrs. Lovett, surely his shout to the police would be
heard above all other sounds, and at once bring them to his aid. Tingle!
tingle! tingle! went a bell. It was the signal for him to get a batch of
pies ready for the oven.
"Good," he said, "it is done."
He waited until the signal was given to him to put them in to be cooked,